We cover high school graduations countywide

One of the proudest moments in any person's life is high school graduation, and we will be bringing readers complete coverage of all the pomp and circumstance again this year.
For example, today Templeton Independent Study High student Kellie Moss graces our Local section front page with a huge smile.
We kicked off our coverage in Saturday's issue with coverage of the Mission Prep graduation. One of our photos shows graduate Delise Rietkerk joyously running to embrace fellow grad Melissa Munoz.
As the graduations roll on this week and next, our photographers will be there. Look for extra photos of the ceremonies from some of the graduations to be posted on SanLuisObispo.com.
Our effort culminates on Sunday, June 17, when we publish our special supplement that lists the names of the graduates from our area's high schools. For proud parents, it will be a neat keepsake.
_ Tad Weber

Catch the news with "Morning Headlines'' ... plus a reader's query on John Wayne

Sign up for The Tribune’s “Morning Headlines’’ at this link: http://www.sanluisobispo.com/newsalerts

If you don’t have a chance to read your Tribune some mornings, I encourage you to sign up for “Morning Headlines,’’ the first of our e-mail newsletters.
We’re launching it around 8 a.m. today to give you the top four stories and photo of the day – two from our local news report and two more from Business, Sports or Features. Our staff will produce it every weekday.
Our intent is to “make it easier for you to keep up with local news, information and events by bringing that news right to your e-mail inboxes,’’ said Online Editor Sally Buffalo.
We also plan to send alerts when news breaks that we believe you would want to know immediately – such as a serious traffic tie-up, a fire or crime that could close off certain areas, a major news story or the death of a well-known figure, Buffalo said.
In coming weeks, we will offer an afternoon news update by e-mail as well.
“Morning Headlines’’ will offer a one-sentence summary of each news item and give a link to read the entire story on our Web site, sanluisobispo.com.
There, you’ll find a host of other information too, including audio and video reports and source documents that are exclusively online. Last month, for example, you could have accessed 80 documents, seven audio slideshows, three videos and 12 polls.
That’s not counting the wide range of other online features that complement and enhance our coverage of the county. Planning on touring a few wineries? Check out our suggested wine itineraries. Want to take a hike? Use one of our guides. Wondering where to eat out tonight? Browse through 250 local restaurant reviews.
One last note: If you’re not already checking sanluisobispo.com throughout the day and evening for news updates, I encourage you to do so. Our reporters post nine to 12 breaking news stories there every Monday through Friday. And five reporters and editors now write blogs on the local entertainment scene and tourism, high school and collegiate sports and a peek behind our own curtain here at The Tribune (similar to this column, only online daily).
Clearly, the way in which we all obtain information is changing dramatically.
But you can count on us to navigate the waters locally and to be your trusted source. We’ll break news online but continue to give you more analysis and a deeper understanding of issues in our newspaper.

Q. What wonderful stories were told about John Wayne in Saturday's paper, May 26. I had tears in my eyes when I finished. I could hardly wait to see his movies all week long. It's Sunday now, and once again I have tears. After searching the TV program schedule and finding nothing about John Wayne, I went to the channel Web site. What a drag. The movies were on last week. How can you do such a thing? You print a story a week late as though it were up to date. ... Did you also participate in producing that newspaper that declared that Dewey had beaten Truman? … How are you going to make up for this? -- John Wolcott, San Luis Obispo

A. As John Wayne told Susan Hayward when he played Genghis Kahn in the movie, “The Conqueror,” ‘Yer beautiful in yer wrath! I shall keep you, and in responding to my passions, yer hatred will kindle into love.’ Clearly, it wasn’t our intent to upset you. Rather, it was to celebrate Wayne’s life and the impact he had on the film industry and people like you and me. Two of the three stories we published didn’t run on our wire services until late in the day May 23 and May 24, although the main story that listed 100 reasons to love Wayne did run earlier. We packaged three stories together because we had room in Saturday’s paper to offer a full page, which we lacked earlier in the week. Could we have published one story earlier to remind readers to look at their TV schedules for John Wayne films? Yes. How will we make up for this? By striving to alert you in advance to milestones like John Wayne’s birthday. To quote the Duke himself: “Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday.”

-- Sandy Duerr

A viewer criticizes us for allowing anonymous comments

One of our Web viewers took us to task today for allowing anonymous comment posting to our Web site:

"I think it is a shame that you let everyone post comments anonymously on your website, something you never have allowed in letters to the editor, and for good reason. If people were forced to leave their true identities when commenting then maybe there wouldn't be all this terrible, ugly, sickening trash talk stinking up this website. People will say anything, mindlessly beat up anyone with their words, if they don't have to take any responsibility for it. I imagine you allow it just so you can show that you have people interacting with your site. It's a sad trade-off which I think does more harm than good for our community. Don't you agree?"
_ David Ciaffardini, Oceano

To be sure, anonymity and the use of psuedonyms are widespread across the Internet. We are no different than most media sites. The prevailing theory is that it is more engaging to have a lively debate, even if it means letting people hide their true identities.

As to whether that causes more harm than good, that is open for debate. To be sure, ugly commenting does occur on our site, like most any Internet site that includes controversial topics. But there is also a lot of nastiness on talk radio, TV talk shows, etc.

I commend David for being up front about his identity with his comments. He has also been the most regular participant on this blog since Sandy Duerr and I launched it earlier this year. It would be great to have more participants, especially those who are willing to be recognized when they post.
_ Tad Weber

Check out our new videos!

We’ve got two cool videos on sanluisobispo.com today, thanks to photographers Laura Dickinson and David Middlecamp and features reporter Pat Pemberton. Check them out:

Video: Arroyo Grande High School cardboard boat regatta
Video: Music of Kenny Blackwell

As a newsroom, we are trying to produce more video to help us bring our stories alive. We just purchased a second video camera, this one quite small and easy to use, more like a digital point-and-shoot. And we're encouraging our news staff to try using it on their assignments.

-- Sandy Duerr

We get an exclusive interview with President Bush

Our paper is owned by the McClatchy Co., the nation's second-largest newspaper corporation. As such, we get first crack at the top-notch reporting from the McClatchy bureau in Washington, D.C. Today is an example. White House correspondent Ron Hutcheson got an exclusive interview with President Bush while he traveled to Georgia yesterday. The president used the interview to promote his immigration plan and counter critics. We published Ron's story on Page A3. Here is the link to the story from our Web site: http://www.sanluisobispo.com/425/story/54046.html
Ron's relationship with President Bush began in the early 1990s in Texas. Ron is a University of Texas graduate who later worked for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and covered Bush when he became governor of Texas. Ron is one of the most knowledgeable reporters in Washington when it comes to all things pertaining to George W. Bush -- and our readers get the benefit of that with stories like today's.
_ Tad Weber

Should we "stage'' photos? No

A reader recently complained that photography in our weekly Home section didn’t portray local houses to best advantage and that we should “stage’’ more photos.
Rochelle Reed, features editor of The Tribune, raised this concern in the May 25 issue. I think her response perfectly summarized our approach. Given that, I’ve included it verbatim below, in case any of our online readers hadn't read it:
“Staging is a term used when a home is accessorized in order to sell it. ‘Styling’ is the term that interior-decorating magazines and now television shows use when they temporarily supplement or completely replace a homeowner’s furnishings and accessories with more fashionable items.
“During the decade that I styled homes for decorating magazines, I straightened shelves, hid televisions, replaced dead plants and frequently brought in entirely new furniture. After a time, I realized how unfair we were to readers, who imagined that other homeowners lived in perfect environs totally without clutter. So in Home, we show homes just as they are, often well-lived or … maintained in pristine formality.
“What you see is what really exists.’’

-- Sandy Duerr

Meet Bill and Bob, our new columnists

Do you want to share an inspirational story? Catch someone doing something good? Highlight a wrong that must be righted?
If the answer is yes ... and we suspect it is ... please be sure to tell Bill Morem and Bob Cuddy, veteran journalists who are now each writing a weekly local column.
We launched Bill's commentary today. Bob's column will appear on Sundays. Look for them both on The Tribune's Local section front.
They’ll write on topics of broad interest closely tied to current local news -- those that are inspirational; those that are wry, humorous slices of life; and those that hold our public officials accountable. As Bill wrote today, "you can check this spot for cheers, jeers, name-dropping and a little word-smithing along the way.''
Morem, a SLO native and longtime editor for The Tribune -- most recently as opinion page editor -- now is writing the column and editing the Sun Bulletin, our weekly that covers a large part of the North Coast. Cuddy, whose career spans 40 years, joined our staff in 2005 as the county government reporter specializing in growth and development issues.
As they begin telling you what they think, please be sure to let them know what you think too! I know they welcome your ideas and comments.

-- Sandy Duerr

Why the AP feature story on our front page today?

Our front-page today features a story from Pennsylvania about some Amish people with a rare liver disease. Because the story is not local, it has drawn some questions from readers:

"An AP story feature leads the front page and most of the words in section 1. Remind me why I subscribe to print papers again? If I want random AP stories, it's easier to get those elswehere, and more of them, for free. Maybe the Trib should include a note of explanation when they do this that all the LOCAL reporters were at a staff retreat, training, sick, or vacation and thus couldn't submit a news story today."
_ Still a Subscriber

"While I understand and can relate to the story, why is news from East Earl, PA front page news in SLO CA?"
_ Sue

"Front page is the perfect spot. It is a story about a parent's love for their children. ..."
_ AC

It is a fair question for our subscribers to ask why we put that story on our front page. The posting by AC helps answer in part -- it is a compelling human drama. From time to time Associated Press will move a story or series that has a dramatic subject and strong writing. We felt the "Blue Light" story met that test.
It is the exception for us to publish a Page 1 centerpiece that is not local. And when that does occur, we make sure to have other local stories on the page. Today, for example, the three other stories on A1 are all local and written by our staff. Our plans for the coming week call for staff-written centerpieces to anchor page 1.
We know our readers are keenly interested in local news. We strive to provide that coverage day in and out, and for the most part, I think we succeed. But we want to be open to publishing a really interesting story from anywhere. We think many, if not most, of our readers appreciate that, too.
I'd love to hear from you if you agree -- or disagree.
_ Tad Weber

Who's reading us online ... in Massachusetts?

I thought you might be interested in who’s accessing our site.
Data from last week, May 13 to May 19, shows the following number of unique visitors and the percentage they represent of overall visitors. Clearly, SLO readers are in the lead.
If you know why we’re so popular in Massachusetts, please post a comment on this blog – and help us understand. We’ve seen this pattern now for several weeks.

1. San Luis Obispo (California, United States) 14,874 24.9%
2. Atascadero (California, United States) 2,232 3.7%
3. Los Angeles (California, United States) 2,121 3.5%
4. Grover Beach (California, United States) 1,874 3.1%
5. Lincoln (Massachusetts, United States) 1,721 2.9%
6. Waltham (Massachusetts, United States) 1,630 2.7%
7. Boston (Massachusetts, United States) 1,607 2.7%
8. San Jose (California, United States) 1,390 2.3%
9. San Francisco (California, United States) 1,299 2.2%
10. Morro Bay (California, United States) 1,285 2.2%

-- Sandy Duerr

We take you inside Atascadero State Hospital

If you want to get a unique look into what it is like to work at Atascadero State Hospital, click here: http://www.sanluisobispo.com/482/story/46034.html
That link will take you to an audio slide show by Tribune senior staff photographer David Middlecamp. He filmed ASH psychatric technician Brian Eddy on a recent work day at the state hospital.
Eddy tells viewers what it is like to manage a population of patients who are being treated for mental disorders, all with the goal of helping them regain sanity so they can stand trial in criminal court.
David's slide show accompanies a strong story by staff writer Stephen Curran. The link will also take you to that story.
_ Tad Weber

I took the challenge of Bike to Work Week in SLO

Like you, I read our advance stories about the annual Bike to Work and School Week, which began Monday and concludes today. I wanted to do my part for the environment. And with gas prices being what they are, it made even more sense.
So here it is Friday, and I am proud to report I have biked to The Tribune four of the five work days this week. I've been the guy heading down Tank Farm Road in the screaming yellow-green jacket around 9 a.m. every day.
A few observations:
-- Free coffee from participating coffeehouses in town: A great idea. Just this simple thing was a good motivator for me -- I had to get that free cup! Thanks to the organizers and participating coffeehouses that joined in.
-- There is lots of junk alongside the road. I ride Tank Farm Road to get to the newspaper, and when I am not keeping an eye out for cars and big trucks speeding by at 50 mph or more, I am trying to dodge the flotsam and jetsam along the roadway shoulder. It has me thinking that I should adopt part of the Tank Farm stretch for a cleanup. If you are hauling stuff to the dump, please keep it tied down.
-- Many motorists are cool. Sure, there are the usual jerks out there who buzz by too close. But I found a good number of drivers giving me a wide berth or politely letting me pass. Thanks!
What is the end result of this week's experiment? For one, it took me back to an earlier time, like my high school years when all I had for transportation was a bike. The memories were nice, but the reality is that I can do this. So I plan to keep it up as much as I can, at least while daylight savings time lasts.
If you've been riding this week, share your comments here.
_ Tad Weber

Your commenting on our stories more than ever

Recently we added the ability to post a comment with very nearly every local story on sanluisobispo.com, and you viewers have responded. Here is a summary from Online Editor Sally Buffalo:
" We have seen a huge spike in the number of comments since we started putting it on all stories – more than doubling from a couple months ago and still rising. I guess it makes sense that the more stories you have it on, the more you will get. But it seems our users have really responded.
"We also have started to “reverse-publish” some of our comments in the Opinion section when we get especially good ones on a particular subject. This has gotten a good response, and I think drives print readers to see what more is on the web as well."
Sally is pointing to our "Web talk" feature on the Opinion page. Check it out in the print edition of The Tribune if you've not seen it.
I also want to highlight yet another new Web feature our online team has added to our site: Most-Read Stories. The box, on the right side of the home page, updates every hour. So you can click in throughout the day to see what stories are resonating most.
_ Tad Weber

Making sense of attempted murder-suicide

Staff Writer Sarah Arnquist writes a compelling story today on sanluisobispo.com that addresses why a Grover Beach man in his 80s might have shot himself and his wife. http://www.sanluisobispo.com/183/story/42510.html
She survived the shooting and is now being treated at Stanford Medical Center. The man had been fighting cancer, and as Sarah reports neighbors saying, had suffered declining health in recent months. His wife had suffered from dementia-like symptoms, so theirs was a tough life. Compounding matters, neighbors told Sarah how the man was fiercely independent and did not want help from others. Sarah quotes experts with local agencies that support caregivers about how to look for signs of depression in elderly people as a first step toward seeing their needs and trying to come to their assistance.
This kind of context is important to providing a fuller understanding of such tragedies, and it is a key aspect of the journalism we offer readers and viewers.
_ Tad Weber

Why we named the victim of an attempted murder

We’ve received both praise and criticism for identifying the elderly woman who was shot by an elderly man in a Tribune story this morning. The critics say we lack concern for the family. “The law states that the name of the victim will not be released, so you basically work around the authorities and release it yourself.’’ Supporters noted that it was no secret who the victims were, that The Tribune was just doing its job and that “reporting the victim’s name quells fears and concerns’’ among those who might fear the victim could have been someone else at the trailer park where the incident occurred.
As we noted in the story, Grover Beach police officials refused to provide the woman’s name, claiming it was a domestic abuse case and citing an exception in the California Public Records Act allowing victims’ names to be withheld.
After confirming the victim’s name different ways, we published it because police called the incident an attempted murder-suicide. We rarely, if ever, cover individual domestic violence disturbances but we do report names involved in murders and attempted murders. Moreover, the woman we identified was no longer at risk of danger because, police said, the man who shot her had killed himself.
-- Sandra Duerr

All-Star mother: Did our story send a message?

Lively comments have been posted in reaction to our Saturday front-page story, "An all-star mother." The story, by senior staff writer Brian Milne, tells how Cal Poly softball player Shannon Brooks has juggled mothering her 9-month-old daughter Alannah with playing for the Mustangs softball team this spring.
Some Web viewers questioned our news judgment, especially with the story running on Mother's Day weekend.
Here was one post from an anonymous reader:
"The Telegram Tribune putting an article on the front page celebrating an unwed mother for mothers day? Sick. "
In another posting, a viewer named John wondered if we could have found a more deserving woman to highlight -- one who was married. Shannon and her fiance, Poly football player Julai Tuua, plan to get married this summer.
Shannon's story was not the only one we had this past weekend recognizing motherhood. We published a front-page story on Sunday about a Paso Robles couple who are foster parents to 11 children.
We highlighted both stories because they are inspirational -- they show people like you and me acting with courage, grace, determination and dedication in the face of long odds.
They also both shared the quality of being unusual. It is not often that foster parents take in 11 children at a time, or that a full-time athlete in a high-caliber college program has to be a full-time mom at the same time. Or that the team itself embraces mother, dad and daughter like the Cal Poly softball women did this season with Shannon, Julai and Alannah.
When stories are inspirational and unusual, they make for good storytelling and thus good journalism.
_ Tad Weber

Our headline on school story missed the mark

Two readers questioned our choice of words in the headline Thursday announcing that the Arroyo Grande High School principal was stepping down to become an elementary school principal at Ocean View in the same district.
We wrote: "A.G. High's principal announced a downgrade."
That headline “is an insult to Ocean View and it is a slap-in-the-face to all elementary school principals,’’ wrote Ann Dennis of Cambria. “ You could have used "departure", "reposting,' or even a compound like "job change." It may not be in the dictionary, but it is kinder than "downgrade." They all have the nine letters needed for that headline.”
Colleen Marin, a trustee with the Lucia Mar Unified School District, wrote us that Ryan Pinkerton, the high school principal, has “performed as an excellent leader of one of the county’s largest companies (Arroyo Grande High School),” and simply asked for a transfer. “All of our schools are important and Mr. Pinkerton's new position at Ocean View Elementary will be a win for our district. Perhaps a better headline could have read something like "Pinkerton reaffirms his commitment to Lucia Mar."
I agree with our critics.
Pinkerton had asked for the change of duties so that he could spend more time with his family right now.
Our headline writer did not mean to slight Pinkerton or elementary schools. Still, the headline gave two erroneous impressions – first, that Pinkerton was demoted and second, that being an elementary school principal is somehow a lesser job. Both are false.
-- Sandy Duerr

Speak up: Give us your thoughts on our coverage

As online readers of The Tribune know, we are increasingly seeking your thoughts on stories that we publish, especially on local issues. It's simple to do: Just click on the Post A Comment section on any story on our Web site, sanluisobispo.com. Your comments are helpful in two ways: They foster debate among the community and give us greater insight into the story itself. Increasingly, this interaction is helping our reporters better cover local issues.
We're now beginning to reverse publish some of these excerpts on our Editorial page too. Our intention is to take the best of the comments on a subject and publish those daily. Today, for example, we offered readers' comments on the county board's decision this week to hire a $60,000 expert to fight obesity here.
Speaking of the Opinion Page, I was recently asked if we publish poems there. We generally do not allow them, although we have made rare exceptions for short, cleverly written poems that address local issues. Editorial Page Editor Stephanie Finucane says we'll make a point to include the prohibition on poetry in the expanded letter guidelines.
-- Sandy Duerr

Green building makes for good news

If you are interested in the green-building movement, make sure to read the lead story under our Business link on sanluisobispo.com. Staff Writer Ermina Karim did a question-and-answer interview with Erik Justesen of RRM Design in San Luis Obispo. The firm was an early proponent of green building techniques, and it offers its employees cool incentives toward becoming more Earth-friendly (such as $1,000 bonuses for the first five to buy a hybrid vehicle this year). Green building and recycling efforts are now key news in today's media landscape. If you know of any local efforts that you think are newsworthy, please share that with our readers here by posting a tip.
_ Tad Weber

Why the Greensburg tornado story didn't make our front page

A reader called Monday, upset that we had failed to run coverage of the deadly tornadoes in Greensburg, Kansas, on our front page Sunday. We published a small A1 photo that day of the damage directing readers to a story and more photos on page A3.
Unquestionably, this was a tragic event that killed nine people and destroyed 95 percent of the town of 1,500.
We made our decision because the news was nearly 36 hours old by the time readers received our paper Sunday morning and the disaster had been widely reported by then on TV and Web sites. (The tornadoes struck Greensboro late Friday, but news of the tragedy didn’t run on our wire services until 4 a.m. Saturday – long past our deadline for Saturday’s newspaper.)
Our intent is always to offer readers the freshest news, context or analysis possible and to give priority to local news since that is our franchise and we know readers turn to us foremost for that. That said, thoughtful people can reach different conclusions. What would you have done?
-- Sandra Duerr

All the crime news fit to print?

This post was written by Popeye and put onto our discussion board on sanluisobispo.com last week:

"Has anyone else ever wonderd why crimes that happen in the town known as "Almost Paradise" aka, Paso Robles don't make the pages of the Tribune. Just last Saturday night at a party of young people in Paso Robles, a young man ... was stabbed in the neck with a broken beer bottle. He was taken to the hospital by friends before both police and paramedics arrived on the scene ... But I think it is not a case of cover up on the part of the Trib as much as it is a cover up by officials in Paso Robles to once again hide the ugly fact that crimes, specifically violent crimes actually take place."

I asked City Editor Matt Lazier whether we'd heard of this incident last week, and he said he had not. Bottom line: If we'd learned of it, we likely would have reported it (i.e., as long as the victim did not self-inflict the wounds. If he had, then we enter a discussion about attempted suicide).
We publish a police blotter nearly every day in our Local section. It includes items from around the county. We do rely on the police and Sheriff's Department to make us aware of newsworthy calls their officers and deputies respond to. We would be similar to most all community papers in that regard. To be sure, there are occasions when police, for their investigative purposes, choose to keep an incident quiet. Sometimes people in a community will tip us to an incident, and we can report it, or at least look into it.
Otherwise, we follow our regular practices of making calls every morning to the police departments to find out what significant calls they have been on. We also regularly review the list of police calls known as the log.
You can also see all the calls reported to the San Luis Obispo Police Department on our Web site. It updates every day.
_ Tad Weber